Tsuritama - Episode 4

Having his grandmother in hospital is enough on its own merit to make Yuki's life decidedly busier, but now he has even more of a scramble of a morning for an entirely different reason.  No, not Haru (well, actually yes, Haru is part of the reason too), but the need to get in an early morning fishing session.

Not only has this change in Yuki's habits helped his friendship with Natsuki, it's also seen him and Haru strike up something of a relationship with his father too, giving us a closer look at the rather dysfunctional father-son relationship with this pairing, particularly through the eyes of the ever-astute Haru when it comes to these things.

Indeed, not only has Haru observed the problem, but he also decides to try and put it right with some liberal use of his deus ex water pistol.  This looks all set to work its magic too until Yuki comes along, admonishing Haru for using the pistol again and perhaps more importantly for breaking his promise not to do so.  Thus, we have another fracture in Yuki and Haru's relationship, which is only repaired in light of Yuki finally getting the hang of this whole fishing lark and managing to net himself an impressively big sea bass.

First off, I have to admit that this has probably been the most enjoyable instalment of Tsuritama so far for me - Haru's use as a builder of bridges on account of his straightforward nature is really starting to come to the fore, although I really hope we genuinely don't see any further use of that damned water pistol as it's really a downright lazy plot device at this point in proceedings.  This episode was also generally more amusing and entertaining for me than previous instalments, perhaps on account of things having settled down now that Natsuki has levelled out and well and truly become part of proceedings.  The only question now is - where does the series go from here?  Its overall goals are still pretty ill-defined, and I feel like it's going to have to narrow its focus and aims sooner rather than later.